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The Tzotzil are an Indigenous
Maya people Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived w ...
of the central highlands of
Chiapas Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and large ...
, Mexico. As cited by Alfredo López Austin (1997), p. 133, 148 and following. As of 2000, they numbered about 298,000. The municipalities with the largest Tzotzil population are
Chamula San Juan Chamula is a Municipalities of Chiapas, municipality and township in the Mexico, Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Chiapas. It is situated some from San Cristóbal de las Casas. As of 2010, the municipality had a total populati ...
(48,500), San Cristóbal de las Casas (30,700), and
Zinacantán San Lorenzo Zinacantán () is a town and Municipalities of Chiapas, municipality in the List of states in Mexico, Mexican state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. 99.1% of its population is Tzotzil people, Tzotzil Maya, an indigenous peoples of Mexico ...
(24,300), in the
Mexican state A Mexican State (), officially the Free and Sovereign State (), is a constituent federative entity of Mexico according to the Constitution of Mexico. Currently there are 31 states, each with its own constitution, government, state governor, a ...
of
Chiapas Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and large ...
.Peoples of the World Foundation (1009) ''The Tzotzil'
Online version
accessed on 2009-08-16.
The
Tzotzil language Tzotzil (; ) is a Maya language spoken by the Indigenous Tzotzil Maya people in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Some speakers may be somewhat bilingual in Spanish, but many are monolingual Tzotzil speakers. In Central Chiapas, some primary s ...
, like
Tzeltal Tzeltal may refer to: * Tzeltal people, an ethnic group of Mexico * Tzeltal language, the Mayan language they speak {{Disambiguation ...
and Ch'ol, is descended from the proto-Ch'ol spoken in the late classic period at sites such as
Palenque Palenque (; Yucatec Maya: ), also anciently known in the Itza Language as Lakamha ("big water" or "big waters"), was a Maya city-state in southern Mexico that perished in the 8th century. The Palenque ruins date from ca. 226 BC to ca. 799 AD ...
and
Yaxchilan Yaxchilan () is an ancient Maya city located on the bank of the Usumacinta River in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. In the Late Classic Period Yaxchilan was one of the most powerful Maya states along the course of the Usumacinta River, with Pied ...
. The word ''tzotzil'' originally meant "
bat Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...
people" or "people of the bat" in the Tzotzil language (from ''sotz "bat"). Today the Tzotzil refer to their language as ''Bats'i k'op'', which means "true language".


Clothing

Houses were traditionally built of
wattle and daub Wattle and daub is a composite material, composite building method in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called "wattle (construction), wattle" is "daubed" with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, and ...
or
lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
, usually with
thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, Phragmites, water reed, Cyperaceae, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), Juncus, rushes, Calluna, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away fr ...
ed roofs. Traditional men's clothing consists of shirt, short pants, neckerchief, hat, and
wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...
poncho A poncho (; ; ; "blanket", "woolen fabric") is a kind of plainly formed, loose outer garment originating in the Americas, traditionally and still usually made of fabric, and designed to keep the body warm. Ponchos have been used by the Indige ...
. Traditional women's clothing is a blouse or long overdress (''
huipil ''Huipil'' (Nahuatl: ''huīpīlli'' ; Ch'orti': ''b’ujk''; Chuj: ''nip'') is the most common traditional garment worn by indigenous women from central Mexico to Central America. It is a loose-fitting tunic, generally made from two or three ...
''),
indigo InterGlobe Aviation Limited (d/b/a IndiGo), is an India, Indian airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest List of airlines of India, airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 64.1% domestic market ...
dyed skirt (''enredo''), cotton sash, and shawl.Encyclopædia Britannica (2009), ''Tzotzil''
Online entry
accessed 2009-08-16.


History

Based on linguistic and archaeological data, scholars believe that the common ancestors of the contemporary Tzotzil and
Tzeltal Tzeltal may refer to: * Tzeltal people, an ethnic group of Mexico * Tzeltal language, the Mayan language they speak {{Disambiguation ...
peoples entered Chiapas between 100 BCE and 300 CE. According to Spanish chronicles, just before the
Spanish Conquest The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It ...
the Tzotzil exported
quetzal Quetzals () are strikingly colored birds in the trogon family. They are found in forests, especially in humid highlands, with the five species from the genus ''Pharomachrus'' being exclusively Neotropical, while a single species, the eared quet ...
feathers and
amber Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...
to the
Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...
capital of
Tenochtitlán , also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th annivers ...
. They also produced
salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...
from wells near
Ixtapa Ixtapa (, ) is a resort city in Mexico, adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the municipality of Zihuatanejo de Azueta in the state of Guerrero. It is located northwest of the municipal seat, Zihuatanejo, and northwest of Acapulco. In the 2020 I ...
and traded it throughout the Chiapas highlands, and continued to do so after the Conquest. The Spanish conquerors met comparatively little resistance in Chiapas. In 1522, the Zinacantán lord Cuzcácuatl sought the Spaniards with an offer of allegiance, and his subjects afterwards helped Spanish commander Luis Marín to subdue neighboring tribes. On the other hand, the natives from Chamula fought hard against the Spaniards. They and the natives of Huixtlán eventually fled leaving nothing that the invaders could make use of. Unable to obtain service or tribute from those people, the Spaniards returned to the
Gulf A gulf is a large inlet from an ocean or their seas into a landmass, larger and typically (though not always) with a narrower opening than a bay (geography), bay. The term was used traditionally for large, highly indented navigable bodies of s ...
coast, and the Tzotzil returned to their lands and lifestlyle. Other Spanish incursions in the following decade generally spared the Tzotzil, but their numbers were greatly diminished by diseases and hunger. Many villages were forcibly relocated, and the natives were assigned as vassals to the ''encomiendas'' (land grants) given by the Spanish crown to the conquerors. After the Spanish conquest, the Tzotzil were for centuries exploited as laborers, first by the Spaniards and then by the ''Ladinos'' (urban Spanish-speaking people of Spanish and native descent) who own most of the land and dominate commerce. During most of this period, a rigid
caste system A caste is a fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), foll ...
sharply divided the natives from the Ladinos, with very different rights and obligations. The oppression led them to revolt in 1528, 1712, and 1868. The situation of the Tzoltzil worsened considerably in 1863, when laws enacted by
Benito Juárez Benito Pablo Juárez García (; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Mexican politician, military commander, and lawyer who served as the 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in office in 1872. A Zapotec peoples, Zapotec, he w ...
stripped the Indian towns of their corporate lands, forcing many Zinacantecos to become debt-indentured laborers on farms owned by the Ladinos. The sense of national pride has become stronger among the Tzotzil since 1940, as natives have increasingly began to occupy local administrative posts and used their cultural identity for political purposes. While sizable Tzotzil communities have appeared in some towns, other Tzotzil towns have been undergoing "reindianization" as the formerly dominating Ladino minorities have migrated to larger cities. With the collapse of coffee prices in the 1980s, sustainable employment has been hard for many people in the highlands to find. As both population and foreign tourism have risen, the sale of artisan goods has replaced other economic activities. Tzotzils usually sell their products in the nearby cities of San Cristóbal de las Casas,
Comitán Comitán (; formally: Comitán de Domínguez, for Belisario DomínguezComitán de D ...
, and
Simojovel Simojovel is a Municipalities of Chiapas, municipality in the List of states in Mexico, Mexican state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 40,297, up from 31,615 as of 2005. It covers an area of ...
. Recently, and increasingly, many Maya from the highlands of Chiapas have found migration to other parts of Mexico and
Illegal immigration to the United States Illegal immigration, or unauthorized immigration, occurs when foreign nationals, known as aliens, violate US immigration laws by entering the United States unlawfully, or by lawfully entering but then remaining after the expiration of their ...
a way to break away from
subsistence farming Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops on smallholdings to meet the needs of themselves and their families. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements. Planting decisions occ ...
and abysmal wages. Issues surrounding social integration persist, especially with the Ladinos. Support for the Zapatista movement, as well as for other non-violent opposition groups such as Las Abejas, is strong among the Tzotzil.


Native religion

A Spanish chronicler described Zinacantán as a people with "an infinite number of gods; they worshiped the sun and offered sacrifices to it, and to the full rivers, to the springs, to the trees of heavy foliage, and to the high hills they gave incense and gifts .. . their ancestors discovered a stone bat and considered it God and worshiped it" (Ximenez 1929-1931, 360). The Tzotzil conceive the World as a square, at whose center is the "navel", a mound of earth located in the ceremonial center. The world rests on the shoulders of the ''Vashak'', analogous to the Four-Corner Gods or Sky-Bearers of the ancient Maya. This cosmic model is reflected in the ceremonial circuits around houses and fields performed by priests, which proceed counterclockwise around the four corners and end in the center, where offerings are made to the gods. The Tzotzil Underworld inhabited by a race of dwarfs, created by the gods during their attempts to create mankind. The Sun is "Our Father Heat", and the Moon is "Our Holy Mother". The planet
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
is called "Sweeper of the Path" as it precedes the Sun in his path around the World. Local hills and mountains lare the homes of the ancestral couples, the ''Totilme'il'' or "Fathers-Mothers", the most important Tzotzil gods. The next most important deity is the Earth Lord. In modern times, he is pictured as a large fat and rich Ladino living underground, who owns all land and its natural resources. A Tzotzil who uses any of those resources — water holes, trees, mud for his home,
limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
for lime — is expected to compensate the Earth Lord with appropriate offerings in a ceremony. The Tzotzil believe that each human being has two souls, a ''ch'ulel'' and a ''wayhel''. The ''ch'ulel'' is an inner, personal soul, located in the heart and blood, placed in the unborn embryo by the ancestral gods. It is composed of thirteen parts, and a person who loses one or more of these parts must have a curing ceremony performed by a shaman to recover them. " Soul loss" may be caused by fright of falling down or seeing a demon on a dark night; as a punishment by the ancestral gods for misbehavior; or by being sold into slavery to the Earth Lord, through evil witchcraft. At death, the inner soul leaves the body and goes to the ''Katibak'', the world of the dead in the center of the Earth. There it will remain for the same length of time it had been in the human world, reliving his life in reverse, younger and younger, until it is assigned by the ancestral gods to another newborn of the opposite sex. As cited by Alfredo López Austin (1997), p. 146 and following. Baptized infants and women who die in childbirth go directly to Winajel, located in the Sun. People who have drowned, have been murdered, or were struck by lightning do not go to Katibak. Animals and trees too have ''ch'ulel'' soul, which goes through the same cycle. The other soul, the ''wayjel'', is an animal-spirit companion, shared with a ''chanul'', a wild animal. Throughout each person's life, whatever happens to the animal spirit also happens to the person and vice versa. These animal-spirit companions, consisting of
jaguars The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the biggest cat species in the Americas an ...
,
ocelots The ocelot (''Leopardus pardalis'') is a medium-sized spotted wild cat that reaches at the shoulders and weighs between on average. It is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean island ...
, coyotes, and smaller animals such as
squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrel ...
s and
opossum Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 126 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North A ...
s, are kept by the ancestral gods in four corrals inside the "Senior Large Mountain" in the east side of the world. If the animal spirit is let out of its corral by the ancestral gods, the person is in mortal danger and must undergo a lengthy ceremony to round up the ''chanul'' and return it to its corral. Only human beings have a ''wayhel'' soul. Each town is associated to a sacred mountain. The god Manojel-Tojel created humans by leading them out of the caves of the original hills. According to myth, each one of the patron-gods "installed himself in a hill, by order of the gods of the four corners of the earth". Yahwal Balamil is a god who lives inside the earth. He rides a deer with serpent
bridle A bridle is a piece of equipment used to direct a horse. As defined in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the "bridle" includes both the that holds a bit that goes in the mouth of a horse, and the reins that are attached to the bit. It prov ...
s, and frees the water-filled clouds from inside the Earth through caves. He announces himself with the croaking of frogs".


Syncretism

In the centuries since the
Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It ...
, under the influence of
Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
, the Tzotzil have come to associate the Sun with God the Father or Jesus Christ and the Moon with the Virgin Mary. They also revere carved wooden or plaster images and pictures of Catholic saints, dressed in a mixture of colonial- Zinacanteco-style dresses.


Eponyms

The Tzotzil are commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Mexican pit viper, '' Cerrophidion tzotzilorum''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Tzotzil", p. 269).


References


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tzotzil People Chiapas Ethnic groups in Mexico Indigenous peoples in Mexico Maya mythology and religion Maya peoples Chiapas Highlands pl:Tzeltalowie